The present invention relates to a technique for cleaning a surface to be cleaned of a cleaning target by blasting it with dry ice.
Furthermore, the present invention relates to a dry ice cleaning method and apparatus for cleaning a surface to be cleaned of a cleaning target by blasting it with dry ice.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a cleaning method and apparatus using dry ice, which are suitable for cleaning constituent elements and units of a business machine, electric appliance, and the like.
A technique causing dry ice particles, as a cleaning agent, to impinge on a surface to be cleaned, thereby removing a substance attached to the surface to be cleaned, is disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 61-15749.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open 10-202210 discloses a cleaning system for automatically carrying out the cleaning operation of a recycling component while preventing it from being damaged.
The technique shown in this reference discloses a system for removing soil of a recycling component of an office automation apparatus by blasting it with granular dry ice. This technique has a cleaning nozzle which injects granular dry ice together with pressurized air, and a system which carries out cleaning operation while moving the cleaning nozzle along the surface of the recycling component.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-202208 discloses a system performs a cleaning operation by using dry ice pellets as a medium.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 51-60095 discloses a technique with a sand blast method using a sublimitation material.
A need for reusing or so-called recycling the constituent components and units of a business machine and electrical appliance has become strong in terms of effective utilization of resources, countermeasure for environmental pollution, and the like.
To recycle the constituent components and units of the above machine and appliance, they must be removed from the machine and appliance, and whether they function correctly must be checked. Also, these components and units must be maintained in or restored to an almost brand-new state.
In practice, such machine and appliance have been soiled or contaminated in the atmosphere where they have been used, and cleaning operation is needed to remove their soil and contamination.
For example, regarding a copying machine or printer as an example of a business machine, as it uses toner as the image forming material, soil or contamination due to toner dust occurs in, e.g., the fixing unit and components and units around it.
Regarding electric home appliances such as a television, air conditioner, refrigerator, cooler, and the like, regulations for recycling have been put into operation. A recycling system is also needed for the components and units of other electrical and electronic devices, business machines, data communication devices, and industrial machines in terms of the environmental and resource problems.
To recycle the components and units incorporated in these machines and devices, countermeasures such as cleaning methods and apparatuses are required for each specific environment where such machine and device are used and for each contamination source.
Some soil and contamination of the cleaning target cannot be removed by a conventional dry ice cleaning apparatus, depending on the degree of soil, the types of contaminants, and the like.
More specifically, as described above, the recycle target has been widening fast to cover home appliances, information devices, and business machines, and the number of the types of devices that use an electrical element and circuit board has increased. This, together with the variety of the environments where these devices and machines are used, leads to an increase in the degree of soil and types of contaminants as the cleaning target. Conventional dry ice cleaning cannot cope with this situation.
On the circuit board, the terminals of elements constituting an electrical and electronic circuit, pin terminals for electrical connections, and the like are disposed. These components should not be deformed by an impact.
The present invention has been made in view of the problems described above, and has as its object to improve the cleaning effect in accordance with the degree of soil and the types of contaminants of a surface to be cleaned of a cleaning target.
In order to solve the above problems, according to the present invention, there is provided a method of cleaning a cleaning target, including an electrical component, with dry ice, wherein during a process of blasting dry ice toward a surface to be cleaned from a location where the dry ice is stored, a size of the dry ice is adjusted, so cleaning is performed while the size of the dry ice is changed in accordance with a type of soil or contaminant of the surface to be cleaned.
Furthermore, according to the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for cleaning a cleaning target, including an electrical component, with dry ice, comprising means for changing a size of the dry ice in accordance with a type of soil and contaminant of the cleaning target.
Furthermore, according to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of cleaning a cleaning target, including an electrical component, with dry ice, wherein cleaning is performed while a cleaning performance obtained by blasting the dry ice is adjusted in accordance with a contamination degree and type of contaminant of a surface to be cleaned of the cleaning target.
The cleaning performance is adjusted by changing the size of the dry ice.
The cleaning performance is adjusted by adjusting a blast shot velocity of the dry ice toward the surface to be cleaned.
Other objects and advantages besides those discussed above shall be apparent to those skilled in the art from the description of a preferred embodiment of the invention which follows. In the description, reference is made to accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and which illustrate an example of the invention. Such example, however, is not exhaustive of the various embodiments of the invention, and therefore reference is made to the claims which follow the description for determining the scope of the invention.